Grades 3-5 Math Problem Solving in Action_ Getting Students to Love Word Problems

Reasoning About Problems ◆ 91

Figure 6.3 Writing a Problem

Scenario Things in the scenario What do you want to

know?

Playground

Classroom

Cafeteria

Auditorium

Bus

Swings/Slides

Tables

Lines

Seats

Students

Teachers

How many groups?

Or

How many are in each

group?

More Routines for “What Is the Question?”

The teacher can hang a poster at the beginning of the week and write:
The answer is 10 marbles. Write a word problem for this answer. Throughout
the week, the students can write problems and put them on Post-it® notes
to answer the problem. Teachers can also do this activity in small, guided
math groups or post this as a workstation activity.

Another Version of “What Is the Question?”

A great deal of research has focused on getting students to actually
think about the problem situation. In these problems, the student is
given the word problem but not the question. The idea is that if students
focus on the problem and understand the scenario, they will intuitively
know what the question should be. For example, The toy store has
50 marbles. They got a shipment of 50 more. Here is where students are
supposed to come up with the question. This is a great way to see if
students are reasoning about the problem. Here is another example:
Miguel ate ½ his candy bar in the afternoon. In the evening, he ate another
¼ of his candy bar.

2- and 3-Bean Salad Problems

A famous set of problems out of the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley
California looks at developing algebraic reasoning through what is called
3-bean salad problems. Many people have taken this idea and done a
great deal of work with it. I like the problems because they are

Problem 1: There are 45 students in the cafeteria. They are at 5 tables. If

there is an equal amount of students at each table, how many students are

at each table?